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“What do they say now?”

His mouth covered hers, sending pleasure shuddering through her body. She gasped, and his tongue swept in to taste her.

Which meant she could taste him. He was better than any delicacy she could imagine.

“Your lower lip is enchanting,” he groaned, pulling back.

Ella squinted at Fiennes, realizing she could read his eyes too. Her breath hitched at the intent look in them. He wanted her. He wanted to make her body sing with desire.

He was succeeding.

Her hands shook as she ran her fingers down his neck, feeling thick muscle shifting under her fingers. She knew, deep inside, that Fiennes was hers in an intrinsic way: in her blood and bones, in her heart.

Since her parents died, she had learned to live alone, to love Josephina and Starlight. She had never allowed herself to envision being loved.

“Ella.” His voice was a rumble coming from deep in his chest. “Tell me what you want, anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.”

“A hug,” she whispered. His big arms tightened around her as he tucked her into the curve of his warm body.

“I’d like to give you a great deal more than that.”

“You’ll have to,” she said, fidgeting with embarrassment. “Apart from a few garments supplied by Mrs. Quimby, I bring nothing to our marriage.”

The flare in Fiennes’s eyes made up for the humiliation Ella felt to be entering a marriage with scarcely more than the clothing she wore.

“I’d prefer it if you were naked,” he said, dropping a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “You could wear one of my shirts to breakfast. Nothing to bed, of course.”

“Fiennes!”

“Actually, you do bring a lot to our marriage. Starlight and presumably a litter of squirrels, since there’s no sign of Mrs. Josephina.”

At the sound of her name, Starlight meowed so loudly that Ella saw every one of her pointed white teeth.

“You are very demanding,” Fiennes told the cat. He fished in his coat. “Here you are.”

“I can’t believe you had a sausage,” Ella said, leaning against him as Starlight dragged the sausage under the bed where she could nibble it in privacy. “Is that from your breakfast?”

He nodded. “I also have two candied violets for the expecting mother.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you generally this friendly to animals?”

“No.”

Ella raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know how to flirt either,” Fiennes said, his eyes glinting with mischief. “Besides, I like your animals. I had already decided to marry you when I met Josephina, but she would have been a powerful inducement. Better than a dowry.”

“Thank goodness you don’t need a dowry.”

“If I had been chasing a fortune, I wouldn’t have considered Fulvia. And if I hadn’t courted Fulvia, I wouldn’t have met you.”

“Although you also wouldn’t have told an entire ballroom that you meant to marry Fulvia,” Ella pointed out.

“Thinking back, the moment I saw your eyes I realized I couldn’t go through with it. It merely took me a day to acknowledge it.”

“Fulvia is truly ruined now, isn’t she?” Ella asked. The horrifying truth couldn’t be avoided.

“Yes, she is. There is no place for your cousin in polite society.”